Pico de Zarza

While Europe is getting an unhealthy share of snow and cold, it’s getting hot and summery here on Fuerteventura. So I figured it’s time to do this walk before it becomes impossible, or at least very, very uncomfortable.

Pico de Zarza is the highest point of Fuerteventura, just over 800 meters high (just now I found a figure of 807, but it seems to me that I saw some other heights somewhere). When the sky is clear you can see all of Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria and Teide on Tenerife from there. The sky wasn’t that clear when we went, so we didn’t see the other islands. Still, the views are spectacular and the walk well worth doing.

Above is the view along the wild Cofete beach (btw, the only remaining point of the island that I really want to visit and haven’t visited yet).

From La Pared to Sotavento de Jandia

The urge to climb and then jump off the sharp rock is irresistible to some

Last Saturday we went for a long walk with my former Spanish class. The walk started around La Pared village on the west coast of Fuerteventura, ran along the shore for the goodish while, and then started to traverse the island. It ended up at main road FV-1, at the level of southern end of Playa de Sotavento de Jandia.

I liked the walk a lot, the coastal path is absolutely spectacular, but there are a few somewhat difficult points about it that I’d like to record.

First, logistically it’s not easy to organize on your own. It’s not circular, and if you want to go by car, you will have to go through a palaver of arranging at least one at the end of the walk, then ferrying people between the end and the start. We had it easy, as the center provided the bus that brought us to the start and picked us up at the end. I am not sure if the walk is doable by just public transport, but inclined to think that it isn’t.

Second point — most of the route runs along the sandstone ledge not much above the high water level, and under a tall wall of sandstone. There is no or very little mobile reception; so not a great idea to try the walk on your own even if you managed to somehow arrange the transport. Apart from our large group, we met very few people along the path.

Third point, linked to the previous — sandstone ledge runs out occasionally, or becomes quite steep. Nothing too bad, but — watch out and have somebody else watching out for you.

Apart from that, nothing much I can add. Enjoy the views :)

Gardens, gardens everywhere

Anybody who knows anything at all about me knows that I like flowers. And in Puerto de La Cruz there are at least two big gardens. So I went to both this time :)

One is "Jardín Sitio Litre", which is confusingly marked as "Orchid garden" in the little tourist map, private property attached to a largish house where the current owners live. The current name is the result of somewhat japanese-sounding transformation of the original "el Sitio Little", "Little's Place", after Archibald Little, the first owner of the estate. It's not big, well established, nicely laid out, with some space dedicated, yes, to orchids, a koi carp pond, fountain, small cafe etc.

Another one is the "real" botanical garden, know as Jardín de Aclimatación de la Orotava, Jardín Botánico or El Botánico. It's larger, but still nowhere as large as Cambridge botanical garden for instance, let alone Kew. Acclimatization bit in the name is there because it was used to acclimatize plants brought from different parts of the world.

Well. I liked the second one more. It's bigger, collection is more impressive, the entrance is just 2 euro for Canarian resident (dat's me) against 4.75 for the Orchid Garden. Plus, to be honest, I was lured to the Orchid garden by the name, hoping to see a lot of beautiful, well, orchids. I don't know if it is the season or what, but you will see more orchids in Scotsdales garden center. Maybe the garden holds more variety - I don't remember seeing Lady slipper orchids in Scotsdales, for instance. Maybe. Still, I was somewhat disappointed

Now, I wrote this sorry excuse for a text just to be able to post some flower pictures. So here they are :)

Santa Cruz de Tenerife Carnival Parade 2013

I've heard many times that the carnival in Santa Cruz de Tenerife is something worth watching. "Second biggest in the world", "immediately after one ends, everybody starts preparing for the next one", "amount of feathers and sequins like you won't believe", etc, etc...
Last year we were quite content with much more humble offering of Corralejo and Puerto del Rosario, but this year I figured I should go have a look at Tenerife.
Now, I am not an expert on carnivals. Carnivals that I saw in the UK are basically few days affairs, sometimes just one-day affair, when you have a procession and that's pretty much it. Here it is not the case - various events leading up to the main parade start a few weeks in advance. But I couldn't of course drop everything and go for a few weeks, so I restricted myself to just four days. That allowed me to see the two biggest parades on the island - one in Santa Cruz on the day of arrival, one in Puerto de la Cruz on the day of departure, with the Burial of the Sardine and drag "put your heels on" parade in Puerto fitted in between.

Tindaya

I was looking in the direction of Tindaya for quite some time, figuring out how to get there without a car. It’s possible, but tricky, as there are just three buses per day that go past the village. You can start from further, at La Oliva, but that involves walking some nine kilometers to the mountain before going up, and that somehow didn’t seem so very attractive.
Apart from that, there was always a nagging question that nobody could quite answer — do you need a permission to ascend Tindaya, it being a protected area, sacred mountain and all that.
So I was really happy when I got a call from my former Spanish teacher saying that there will be a group excursion for Tindya, that we have enough cars and that he sorted out the group permission with ayuntamiento (district council) *.

Montaña de Ecanfraga, take two

On Friday I had another go at Ecanfraga. This time I thought, “ok, I couldn’t go around it before, but I did go half way up. Now, I will try to go up”.

I almost succeeded, but only almost. My map doesn’t show the way up, so I have to choose how to go myself. The caldera of Ecanfraga has the usual horseshoe shape, maybe a little more angular than the others. I choose to go up by the side of the horseshoe that is closer to Villaverde. I came close, but the path disappeared completely about 30 meters from the top (that’s my estimate, and I am not very good at judging distances up). It was still possible to carry on up, the stones are solid and not slippery, but I was alone and chickened out somewhat.

Montaña de Ecanfraga

I was going to walk around Montaña de Ecanfraga, a big mountain close to Villaverde, ever since my excellent map arrived. Map shows two routes, one that goes around Montaña de Ecanfraga only, starting and finishing in a different bits of Villaverde, and a longer one, which makes a loop around Montaña de Caima too. My intention was to try the shorter one.

I was somewhat disappointed this time, because I couldn’t match the map to Googlemaps. Where the paper map shows a route, aerial photography shows nothing much. And there might be a good reason for that, because there was no clear visible path soon after I’ve turned off a dirt track into the malpais. Maybe the idea is that you can’t go very wrong there, with two mountains on either side of you for the orientation, and you can just pretty much go as you please, I don’t know. I intend to give it another try some day, but this time I decided to go up the mountain instead. Amazingly, there was a double tyre track going up. The distance between the tyres made me think quadbike, but I am not sure. The track went on an incline where no right-minded person will drive any vehicle at all in my opinion, either up or down. Walking is fine though, not too scree-ey, although on a steepish side of course. I found about a million different paths going up and down the mountain; I think most of them are made by goats, not by humans.

I include the route I took below.

Ajuy to Arco del Jurado

Last week my friend was staying with us. He is a lot less nervous driver than I and together we managed to visit some places on Fuerteventura where I’ve never been before (and probably won’t go again, considering how steep and narrow some roads are).

This road that leads to this walk, I am happy to say, is not one of those. I did drive to Ajuy myself before, and it’s not too bad at all. But I was not even aware that there is this stone arch just a short walk away from the village.

Fortunately, recently I bought a large-scale map of Fuerteventura by Kompass. It has a lot more information on walks that I was ever able to find before. So when we made a vague plan to go “somewhere there, maybe Ajuy”, I had a look at the surrounding area and found “Naturdenkmal Arco del Jurado” (yes, the map is mostly in German). Quick search on Google produced some images that looked good, so off we went.

The walk is very easy, no ups and downs of any significance. If you find yourself climbing up or down, stop and look for alternative route, there surely will be one.

El Cotillo and sunset fishing

Today, me and Yuri went to El Cotillo in the evening to catch a sunset. Corralejo looks to the east, and I am not an early riser normally, so there is a very little chance of catching either in the two “sun just above the horizon” moments. El Cotillo is perfect for sunsets.

The bus driver who took us there looked at the tripod and repeated several times that the last bus back is at eight, at eight, get it? Am I got? I found it rather sweet that he was so anxious for us not to miss the last bus. Somewhat intrusive perhaps, but that’s all cultural, your business is everybody’s business it seems.

dunes by day and by night

Yet another report from the dunes.
The cracked and apparently dry surface above is the bottom of a former large pool of rainwater, sort of temporary pond. We saw it containing some water just a few days ago; and it was a surprise to me to find all the water gone when we went that way on Saturday.
However, when I went down there, I found that the water didn't go very far yet, there was a layer of very slippery mud just under the surface, maybe two centimeters deep of so. Judging by the marks, I was not the first person to slip there; fortunately, I didn't fall, but my (almost) new walking shoes had to get their first wash afterwards.

Lajares to La Oliva

Essentially the same route as here, but this time I did the slightly longer version that ends up in La Oliva, following the trans-Fuerteventura footpath GR-131 in its Etapa 2 exactly. It was cooler today and I was alone (no complaining kids in tow), so it worked out nicely.

Another significant difference with the earlier walk was that now there is so much more green. It makes me happy to look at the green patches and the flowers. The flowers above and below are Chrysanthemum coronarium, garland chrysanthemum, and now there are groups of them here and there. I had to go down on my knees to shift the perspective and make this patch look bigger, but I do hope that eventually we will have more and I won’t need to do that. I might do it still, but it woud be nice not to have to.

You can see Montaña Colorada in the background of both of those pictures.

Flowers finally :)

I was waiting and checking, waiting and checking, and the flowers finally appeared. It’s not what you may call a field of flowers, but you can see patches of those small white ones on the edge of the dunes, in that place I went to check on the greenery last time.

Of course, I didn’t know what they were. And once again, I was impressed by the power of Facebook. I sent a message here and received my answer the same day. I don’t know who maintains this FB page (author of the book, maybe), but whoever it is, thank you once again.

It’s Androcymbium psammophilum, a “vulnerable species” due to restricted habitat, only found on Fuerteventura and Lanzarote. The number of plants that appear each year differs greatly and depends on the amount of rainfall. I feel absurdly proud that I spotted them :)

References
http://www.floradecanarias.com/androcymbium_psammophilum.html
http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/162355/0

Green is appearing

Today I decided to go and check out the dunes after the big rain of last week.

Now, the authorities (and I can’t even tell which ones, to be honest) in their eternal wisdom closed the dunes for pedestrian access about a month ago. That is, they erected, for want of a better word, some signs all around the edge of the natural park, about fifty meters apart from each other. Signs say that there is no access the the dunes. The same signs also say that you can’t light fires there and can’t pick up flowers or bother the wildlife. Last two bans seem a bit excessive, because if you obey the first one you won’t be able to do either of the followings two, but there you go. I guess to simply say “no access” appears too harsh or unfair or something.

There are two signs that are different from the others. They say that you can, in fact, enter the dunes (presumably in those two places), but you have to stay on the path. Problem is, there is no single definite path, at least no marked one, so once you are in, you can move with a crazy randomness of a happy butterfly.

You can probably tell that I don’t like those signs and the ban itself, can’t you?

Lajares to Villaverde

Our initial intention was to go from Lajares to La Oliva, but that is a litte bit longer and it was very hot today again, so we decided to opt for a slightly shorter route. I spent some time trying to match the very schematic route from here to the googlemaps. I sort of did, but was not completely sure that I would be able to identify it when in the countryside. I shouldn't have worried, the path is well sign-posted. Most of the route that we did is along trans-Fuerteventura footpath, relatively new collection of paths that cross the whole of Fuerteventura from Corralejo to the Point of Jandia. There are nine "Etapa"s, that is, the whole route is divided into nine stages, but one of them is on the Isla de Lobos, so there are eight of them on Fuerteventura proper. Corralejo-La Oliva is the second stage. There is approximately eight km from Lajares to Villaverde, and slightly more than nine to La Oliva

Montaña Roja

We went up Montaña Roja (Red Mountain) a few weeks ago, but somehow I failed to write it up so far. So here goes.

There is no problem with finding the mountain, as it stick out above the dunes of Corralejo in a very obvious way. When doing some preliminary research, I even found a report by a keen runner who went, well, running up to it and then up the slope to the top. Still, I felt that I don’t want to just go in a straight line, as it were, and maybe it would be the best to go with somebody who not only knows where to go (that bit is pretty clear), but also how. Turns out I probably could have gone by myself without too much difficulty, but you never know until you try.

Majanicho

We were going to get to Majanicho, a small fishing village not very far from Corralejo, for a goodish while already. In fact, me and kids made a few false starts, never getting there, up till today. There is a "cycling route", accordng to Cabildo, which is not really. That is, you can bike there, but it's not a dedicated cycling path, just a dirt road which cars and cyclists share. Share rather unhappily in the case of cyclists, as the passing cars almost always create a cloud of fine red dust. Works as a very cheap self-tanning option though.
Majanicho itself is a tiny place, and to me it looks like the houses there are not meant to be permanent dwellings - rather somewhere to be when you go fishing. There were very few people around the village, although quite a few parked cars, I assume the drivers went down to the ocean to fish. Overall, the place has a rather surrealistic feel to it, like "The Zone" from "Stalker" movie.

Las Palmas

This weekend we went to Gran Canaria for the first time. If you consider that we've been living on one of the Fortunate Islands for over a year, it is a bit odd that so far we've only been to Fuerteventura and Lanzarote (ok, ok, and Isla de Lobos, if you start counting smaller ones too).  But time came to check the rest out and off we went on Fred.Olsen ferry from Morro Jable.

Ferry itself theoretically takes one hour forty minutes, but in reality it took about two hours in both directions. Both ways we also swayed quite alarmingly from side to side, maybe the "normal" timing really happens when the ocean is a bit calmer.

Important note: if you plan your journey yourself and are a foot passenger, i.e. one without a car, don't be fooled by apparent proximity between the arrival point of this ferry and town, as I was. I looked at googlemaps, checked the distance using my fingers and figured it's about one kilometer. When we arrived though it became clear that the arrival point is not where the googlemaps think it is. It's a lot deeper into the "container area" of the port, and you have to walk along Avda. de Las Petrolíferas, which is indeed lined with those huge cylinders full of something oily and therefore doesn't exactly smell of roses.

Playa de Sotavento de Jandia and night photography

Last week, apart from going to Ajuy, we visited the Jandia peninsula. It is on the opposite side of the island, but it's not a long drive - certainly lot shorter than drives we had to underatke to get to Norfolk coast when we lived in Essex.
Playa de Sotavento de Jandia, or Playa de Sotavento, or simply Sotavento, is probably the most famous beach on the whole of Fuerteventura, and that's saying something, as there is a lot of stiff competition. The surfing championship is held there, and the water is just beautiful. The entrance to water seems to be free of sharp rocks, although I didn't check the whole length of the beach of course.

The interesting feature of that beach is that there is a long sandbank running along the shore at a distance maybe couple of hundred meters. It separates the open ocean and a shallow area of less moveable, slightly stagnant water. We were there when the tide was at its highest, but even then it was possible to walk along the sandbank, sometimes wading a little.

Ajuy

This weekend we took out a little rental car and went on a few outings around Fuertevetura. One of those was to a place named Ajuy, which, I must say sounds quite shocking for a Russian ear. Especially when you say something like “I am in Ajuy” in Russian.

Anyway. Prior to this visit, I was convinced that the road to Ajuy is extremely bad; not at all sure why by now. The small road that goes to the village itself (FV-621) is not that narrow and doesn’t behave like a snake; a somewhat trickier stretch is on the bigger road FV-20 between Tuineje and Pajara; or, if you are mad enough to take FV-30 bewteen Betancuria and Pajara, that should provide you with a good adrenalin influx. Still, if your car is powerful enough, it’s not really that bad, especially with automatics.

Nighttime London

We lived in the UK for a very long time, but somehow up till this year I never did any night time photography in London. So I don't know if summer London is always such a delight to photograph, or was it because of the Olympics. Doesn't really matter. Buildings and structures that might look dull and grey during the day, at night transform completely.

Not that the Tower Bridge  looks dull during the day, but some of the office buildings an the pics below do.